Wednesday, 6 April 2016

Global Electronics Health Records (EHR) market size was estimated USD 19.96 billion in 2014 and the market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 5.2% over the forecast period. Quality improvements of healthcare services owing to the implementation of advanced technology tools, rising importance of granting the patients access to critical medical information, and improving their safety concerns are few of the driving factors for the significant increase in the electronic health records market.

Increased usage of tablets and smartphones has augmented the EHR market demand as well. Patient records could be easily managed with reduced human errors by implementing the EHR software to record the medical history of patients giving traceability and ease operation. Favourable government policies like the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) is expected to support the growth of EHR market.

On the basis of product, the EHR market is segmented into web or cloud-based and client-server based. Web-based EHR market has accounted the largest product segment and accounts for over USD 16.00 billion in 2014. Client-server based EHR systems mostly store in-house data. They need hardware, software and a server to be installed.

Cloud-based EHR have the advantage over client server based systems as they store information on external servers and web access is possible via a platform and a web service. Web based EHR market is expected to significantly grow at a CAGR of 5% owing to the lucrative benefits of ease of interoperability, no cost of maintenance of licensing and little investments in infrastructure.

On the basis of end use and application, market subsegments of EHR market are hospital use and ambulatory use. However, the ambulatory sub segment is further sub-segmented into stand-alone facility, clinical use and retail pharmacy use. As of 2014, hospital use shared the largest revenue due to increasing need for medication & consulting, optimum services and growing competition. Ambulatory use is the next largest segment anticipated to grow at a considerable rate due to diagnostics labs & clinics, usage of wireless EHR in retail pharmacies,and rising demand for EHR mobile operations.

As of 2014, North America accounted for the largest share over USD 9.5 billion and a government law providing USD 64,000 from Medicare and Medicaid to every medical practitioner adopting EHR systems. Rising demand for improved quality of medical services, increased pressure for healthcare cost containment, and encouragement through government funding are some of the major factors for North America electronic health record market growth.

In 2014, Europe also shared profit in terms of revenue owing to the various development activities by prominent players of the EHR market. An Epic system was installed at Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, in the UK, costing USD 214 million, in October 2014.

Emerging economies like India, China, Mexico, Brazil and South Africa are expected to demonstrate high economic growth and reflect immense potential for EHR market especially due to rising health awareness among the rising population and increasing disposable income.